Tracing your email:
Emails keep a record of all the computers that they pass through in order to get to your machine. You can see this by looking at the internet headers. If your using outlook, double click on a message to bring it up. Then click the options menu and you can see it under “Internet Headers”. Or left click on the message and click on properties. If you still don't see it, go to the advanced tab in properties and try to see it there. If you are using something other than outlook, then I’m not sure how you can find it but it should be available. Just look through the mail program you use or try to find it using a help window.
When you are looking at the internet headers, you will see a list of IP address (xxx.xxx.xx.xxx. or whatever). The last one that says, “received by” is the one that sent the message. You can now take that IP address and trace it using the command prompt.
To open the command prompt typed “cmd” in the start menu or the run command. A little black box will show up transporting you back to the 80s. Type in “trace rt xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx” the x’s being the last IP address in your internet header. Then press enter. When the computer is done, it will give you another IP address. This is a final IP address that it received when tracing the one that you put in. In other words, the IP address output is the IP address of the computer that actually sent you the message. Now, take that address and put it in www.ipgp.net to see where it came from in the world. Neat huh!?
Now what!?
Now that you know how many computers your email goes through, it’s time to do something about it. Encrypt your emails! Most all email clients can do it and people should be doing it all the time. You will need to get a certificate, something that says, “I am me. I promise.” This way, people will know that it is actually you send messages and not a fraud. You can get a certificate for free from COMODO at http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-products/free-email-certificate.html . It is easy to install and use.
Once you get your certificate, you can now encrypt your email to others that you have a certificate from. If you use gmail, you can use a program with firefox that will let you send encrypted messages right in Gmail. You can get it here http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-smime/gmail-smime.html . Tell all your friends and co-workers so you can start sending messages that those IT guys at he office can’t read any more.
More Encryption
So encrypting emails is great, but what if someone is sitting at your terminal? What will you do then? No problem. There is a program called AxCrypt that will help you out. You can get it here: http://www.axantum.com/AxCrypt/ . Its easy to use and installs right into the shell, so all you have to do is right click a file and select to encrypt it using AxCrypt. Use this program and share a passphrase with people you send messages to, or make a passkey. Its really a neat program and, as always, free.
Manage your passwords with it! Make a file in notepad with all your passwords you use, then encrypt it with a passkey on a flash drive or something. Now you don’t have to worry about remembering them all and they will be safe on your computer when you forget.
Ok, this one ran long. Next Ill bring it to a close for this series. Thanks for reading and please leave a comment. Let me know if anything is helping ya out or if you have questions about anything.
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